Iraq agrees to tentative Kurdish oil deal

BEIRUT — Authorities in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region said Sunday they have reached a preliminary deal with the central government in Baghdad that will allow oil exports from the northern Kurdish region by way of Turkey to resume.

The central government’s Ministry of Oil said in a statement that while a final agreement has not been reached yet, it “hopes to reach an agreement to resume oil exports soon.”

The ministry statement said that Baghdad “is keen to expedite the resumption of exports of the region’s oil through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.”

Officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the seat of the Kurdish government, have long been at odds over oil revenues, a dispute that has been exacerbated by the lack of a federal law detailing the sharing of funds from oil and gas exports.

The announcement comes after an arbitration process by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) last sided with Iraq over a long-standing dispute over the independent export of oil by the Kurdish regional government.

Exports via a pipeline that goes through Iraq’s Fish Khabur border crossing to Turkey’s Ceyhan port will resume this week, according to Lawk Ghafuri, head of foreign media affairs for the Kurdish regional government.

Iraq filed for arbitration against Turkey in 2014 after the Kurdish region began exporting the resource without the consent of Baghdad through the neighboring country. Iraq argued that a 1973 agreement with Turkey requires all oil exports to go through Iraq’s state-owned oil marketing company, SOMO.